Sunday, April 6, 2014

Where Was The D/FW Local Network Live Coverage During Sunday's Early Morning Thunderstorm?

On the left you are looking at a screen cap of a scene you could have seen on any of the Dallas/Fort Worth TV Network Affiliates, be it FOX, ABC, NBC or CBS, last Thursday, during what turned out to be a relatively un-eventful stormy weather event.

I was watching one of my many guilty pleasures, that being Hell's Kitchen, on FOX, suspended in suspense when we went to commercial, not knowing if the men's team had successfully made their 10th plate of lobster ravioli, thus beating the women's team for the first time.

However, after a commercial or two, a very earnest, excited weather dramatizer broke in because he had some important storm information to share so that viewers could remain safe and stay out of weather harm's way. I had Hell's Kitchen recording on the DVR, so I hit the fast forward button til I caught up with live TV, a half hour later, with Hell's Kitchen never back and the weather dramatizer still weather dramatizing.

On FOX the live weather news continued non-stop til the end of prime time programming. I assume the other local networks did like-wise, to varying degrees.

So, this morning, around 4, I was wakened by an explosive boom. I thought one of my neighborhood gas drilling sites had exploded, because the boom did not sound like a thunder boom. Then I saw a flash of lightning, then another boom. Then I knew, we were thunderstorming.

Heavy rain, then heavy hail soon joined the thunderstorming.

Now, when a violent storm pops up in the wee hours of the morning, do Pete Delkus and his fellow weather dramatizers rush to get back on air, to let us know what we need to know to keep safe? If I got out of bed this morning and turned on my TV would I be seeing live bad weather coverage?

When I'm watching TV in prime time, during a storm, I'm fairly aware there is potential danger lurking about. I can read, so information crawling across the screen, or a Doppler map type deal in the upper left of the screen, easily lets me know what I need to know.

Did Thursday's live weather dramatizing keep those people safe from giant hail in Denton? Like those in the Denton Walmart, or in their cars in the Denton Walmart parking lot, did they have access to Pete Delkus and his weather dramatizing co-horts working hard to keep everyone safe?

Really, who is it that the live emergency weather broadcasting is helping keep safe? Those watching TV are already under cover, already know a storm is in progress, already know to keep an ear open to the possibility of a tornado siren screeching a warning.

So, did all four local network affiliates go live this morning to let us sleepers know what we needed to know to keep us safe? If not, how totally irresponsible of them......